I was given an email tonight from my ex from our pastor. We're done. She has requested a legal split between us. I've wanted a conclusion to the insufferable pain I experienced the last 194 days, but this was not the conclusion my heart truly desired.
There is no resolution. We just part ways. Our children will forever live in a broken home, with a mother and father who were unable to make it work. Even though there is nothing I could have done, having fought for the marriage as best I knew how from day one, this is the legacy I feel I am giving them. I fight feeling like a failure every moment of every day.
My pastor and deacon were both sympathetic and hurt along with me, as our goals were to restore the family. I am purposing to be thankful for this difficulty, but I know it's not going to be easy. I didn't even get a chance to fight for my marriage, as, in her words, she purposed to leave over 9 months before she took the leap on February 4th, and never sought to save the marriage. She just wanted out.
You can't keep someone who doesn't want to be with you.
It hurts like hell and will hurt for a long time. I don't hate her. I will always love her. Sure, I'm frustrated and angry at her, but I married her because I love her. Love is an action, and this cements my greatest fear: she doesn't love me. I always had a feeling, year after year, when I saw how she handled things between us. There was no mercy or grace. It was completely performance based — one that I inevitably was unable to keep up with.
So, now what? Here I am. 37 years old, and being thrown out of a relationship that I didn't want to leave because my partner finally confesses she does not love me. As my pastor said, there are fundamental grounds for divorce, as we are not equally yoked on a number of rudimentary levels. Ironically, she feels the same.
Our individual methods of communication are completely alien to each other. For 10 years she tried to communicate with me, using abstract words and statements that had no weight or gravity or were without context. When I pursued meaning, she gave me answers that were designed to appease me, being not truly what she felt or wanted to say, claiming I forced her to deliver them. I tried desperately to communicate my thoughts, ideas, fears, and explain what I saw and how I thought, which she took as gas-lighting.
It's like a worst-case scenario nightmare. 10 years of this without knowing. In my heart, I know I tried everything, but I just can't help feeling like a complete failure right now, not just for my own children, but for everyone else I invested in on her side of the family. I love them all, no matter how wacky some of them are. And now I am completely severed from them.
But there's still tomorrow. There's still the hope that God is doing something even more wonderous, as His hand is undeniably evident in this, keeping us from communicating and splitting Melissa from me months before she chose to leave.
I have nothing left but to rest in Him and wait until he brings the healing and new life my heart is dying to feel. It wants to breathe again. It wants to beat again.
— Micah